Graduate Hopeful Finance Qualification will Give him a Boost

BY: .

Master of Commerce in Finance cum laude graduate, Rwandan-born Mr Olivier Niyitegeka hopes to use his qualification to climb the academic ladder.

Niyitegeka, a Lecturer at Regent Business School, said he was motivated to pursue this qualification at UKZN because he knew it would give him an edge over his peers in terms of knowledge and job opportunities.

‘An MCom is a good qualification to have for someone who wants to pursue a career as an academic.  It increases the prospect of getting a rewarding job.

As a Lecturer of quantitative subjects such as statistics, economics and mathematics of finance, Niyitegeka’s dissertation titled:  “An Analysis of Herd Behaviours in the South African Stock Exchange”, was in line with emerging new theories in the field of behaviour finance.

The research investigated the presence of herd behaviour in the South African stock market which Niyitegeka explains is the key concepts in behaviour finance.

‘Herd behaviour occurs when investors disregard their individual information and base their trading decision on the actions of others. This market abnormality contradicts existing theories in academic finance,’ said Niyitegeka. ‘Indeed it is believed that financial markets are efficient with security prices reflecting all the information that is available pertaining to companies. The results of my study pointed toward a considerable presence of herding among South African investors.’

Niyitegeka’s research also incorporated interdisciplinary elements as it includes a section discussing herding behaviour from a social psychology perspective which is unusual in finance articles.

‘I also used an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to investigate the short and long term dynamics of herd behaviour. To the best of my knowledge no other study had used this model to investigate herd behaviour,’ he said.

For Niyitegeka whose dreams to study at a tertiary institution were realised when he came to South Africa, graduating cum laude is cause for great celebration.

‘My family is very proud of my achievements since I am the only child in my family to get a university qualification let alone a masters degree,’ he said.

-           Thandiwe Jumo